Thursday, December 26, 2024

Whitney Houston Movie I Told You About Last November Written by Anthony McCarten is On, Produced by Pat Houston and Clive Davis

Last November 26th, 2019 I told you there was a Whitney Houston movie in the works. I told you that Anthony McCarten, who wrote “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “The Two Popes,” had taken it on.

The movie is a go, with Whitney’s sister in law and final manager, Pat Houston, getting producing credit with Clive Davis. They’ve settled on an odd choice for a director, Stella Meghie. She directed “The Photograph” and three other features that were not really well known.

Meghie has a lot to deal with. Because Pat Houston is involved, the story may be tilted toward this idea of blaming Whitney’s cousin, Dee Dee Warwick, for abusing her and her brother Gary. That’s how Pat and director Nick Broomfield presented it in their documentary. If they do that, of course, Dee Dee’s sister, Dionne Warwick, will be very unhappy. And she’s Clive Davis’s good friend.

Meghie and McCarten, if they’re going to tell the truth, will have to explore how Whitney’s brothers Gary and Michael turned her into a drug addict. They’re also going to have to explain Whitney’s relationship with Robyn Crawford, which Crawford detailed last year in a truthful book. Do they just gloss over all this stuff? Or do they go for realism? They’re calling the movie “I Wanna Dance with Somebody.”

They will also have to deal with Bobby Brown, and tell the story of how Whitney let Nick Gordon into their lives. Gordon is thought to be responsible for the death of Bobbi Kristina, and then he himself died.

This should be interesting, however it pans out.

 

Roger Friedman
Roger Friedmanhttps://www.showbiz411.com
Roger Friedman began his Showbiz411 column in April 2009 after 10 years with Fox News, where he created the Fox411 column. His movie reviews are carried by Rotten Tomatoes, and he is a member of both the movie and TV branches of the Critics Choice Awards. His articles have appeared in dozens of publications over the years including New York Magazine, where he wrote the Intelligencer column in the mid 90s and covered the OJ Simpson trial, and Fox News (when it wasn't so crazy) where he covered Michael Jackson. He is also the writer and co-producer of "Only the Strong Survive," a selection of the Cannes, Sundance, and Telluride Film festivals, directed by DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus.

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